Diane Montgomery - Teaching Gifted Children with Special Educational Needs: Supporting dual and multiple exceptionality

In the UK and USA there is a tension between individual pathology models and ecological models in special educational needs (SEN). A major site for this conflict is in education. In Britain there is a resistance to medicalise conditions to avoid the negative consequences of placing emphasis on deficits rather than educational needs.

In the US the normalisation of medical labels to explain educational difficulties occurs because the legislation does not permit access to special services or resources without it. This makes the concept less threatening to their practitioners and the general population.

The hesitation to medicalise conditions is widespread in the UK. For example specific learning difficulties is used in England for the US term learning disabilities and difficulties is preferred to disorders. There is also a strong movement not to label conditions at all because of the stigma that might arise. This has tended to change the concept of SEN and in the specialist education SEN field in England and Scotland they are often referred to as Additional Needs.

Students and pupils: pupils is an English term referring to children and young people in schools. The term students is used in international journals, books and research and can refer to children, pupils, youths and students in higher education.

Note:

The Ministry of Education: This title has changed many times over the years and as such references will be seen as DES, DfE, DfEE, DfES, DCFS and, again recently, DfE.

World Health Organisation (WHO) 1992 The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders: Clinical Description and Diagnostic Guidelines Geneva: WHO. These guidelines are sometimes used by researchers and diagnosticians instead of those of the American Psychiatric Association (APA DSM-IV 1994 and DSM-V 2006).